Guarding the Guardian

In the late 1970s, when I was living in England, The Guardian was the most Soviet friendly of all British broadsheet newspapers, constantly trying to find excuses for Soviet behaviour by implying that the West was morally at least as evil as its adversaries. Apparently The Guardian has learned no lessons from the fall of Communism in 1989.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who is to guard the guards themselves?), the Roman poet Juvenal asked. Would the Cold War have ended sooner if weblogs had existed in the 1970s? This is a question one may ask now that Albert Scardino, a senior editor of British left-wing newspaper The Guardian, resigned after weblogger Scott Burgess revealed on The Daily Ablution that The Guardian had engaged Dilpazier Aslam, a member of Hizb ut Tahrir, an al-Qaeda related organisation, as a trainee journalist and political commentator. On 13 July, Aslam wrote an op-ed piece in The Guardian, stating that the British could not pretend “that the [7/7 London] bombings happened through no responsibility of [their] own.” Burgess’s revelation of Aslam’s membership of HuT that same 13 July was picked up by other bloggers and the mainstream media, which finally led to Aslam being sacked and the resignation of Scardino, who had known about the HuT membership of his trainee.

What possessed these people to think they could turn their paper into a platform for al-Qaeda and get away with it? The answer is arrogance. The same arrogance that characterised so many editors and journalists during the Cold War, when much of the Western press acted as a vehicle for Soviet policy. Journalists could be openly communist and that was accepted, while those who stood for freedom and democracy against the Soviets were regarded as intolerant or extreme. It was not done for the press in Western Europe to side with its own side. On the contrary, anyone who was anti-American was regarded as morally and intellectually superior. In the couple of decades since the Cold War the attitudes of the press have not changed. Their basic instinct is to side with whoever happens to be fighting against America. From worshippers of communism they have now become condoners of terrorism. To even dream of doing so in a country which has experienced terrorism first-hand throughout the war in Northern Ireland only indicates the extent of their arrogance.

Quis custodiet

It's delightful to read the Guardian to see what the Lefties are up to.

In fairness to them they do allow some sensible commentators to have a say as well as the usual treacherous suspects.

And there's always Richard Ingrams.

Bob Doney

Remember that the Socialist

Remember that the Socialist Labour Party gave the Jet Engine Technology to the Soviet Union.

The Guardian is Labour. Labour is Guardian.

Guardian readers used to tell me "The people of the Soviet Union are happy. They had their election in 1917".

The Guardian is a dangerous organisation and destabilises the world.

Provoking terrorism

The worst thing is that leftwing intellectuals are feeding and even provoking terrorism by endlessly repeating that it is caused by injustice, poverty, the war in Iraq, or whatsoever.
Remember the declaration of Ken Livingstone that the war in Iraq was the cause of the bombings.
It immediately declenched a new vague of bombings, which didn't succeed, but it shows that justifying the cause of terrorists encourages them hugely.

We have to recognize that Western countries have a responsibility in the world, simply by the fact that we have the largest economies, and that there are a lot of places in the world where it's not good to live.
But putting all guilt on the shoulders of Western policies and turning the West into a scapegoat is not only intellectually incorrect, it is also likely not to make the world a better place.
In fact the world needs us, but we can't feed the mouth that bites in our hand.

On the other hand: the real poor countries in Africa are still very grateful when we try to help them.
The actual terrorism from which we suffer is in fact inspired by the son of a very wealthy Saoudian businessman.

Guardian as a threat to western values ?

How refreshing to read such forceful and penetrating intellectual insights into the role of the Guardian as a stalking horse for the labour party, communism, Islam etc. etc.

This is actually the paper that is currently serialsing the memoirs of the UK ambassador to the US about Blair (he is supposed to be on the "left") being more of a poodle / puppet to the US administration than Thatcher ever was (we know where she stood).

Yours from a Brit expat who left the UK after five years of Blair realising that nothing weren't ever gonna change.

A left wing British government is still economically and politically the equivalent of Genghis Khan comapre to any serious and acceptable mainstream European political party. No wonder the Tories face a crisis. what have they got to argue against?

Those poor African countries

"On the other hand: the real poor countries in Africa are still very grateful when we try to help them."

Waw. There's a leftist statement if I've ever read one. Careful now, you could be provoking terrorism.

Given that your assertion is true (which I'm not so sure of, but let's assume that it is for argument's sake), "they" are grateful because "they" are the corrupt, illegitimate regimes that actually benefit from the billions "the West" keeps sending to Africa.

Why leftist?

In the first place I mean when the supplies get to the people who need it and don't stay glued in the wallet of corrupted fonctionaries, like it's mostly the case.
If regimes are corrupt they should be replaced and if necessary this has to been done by military force.
In the nineties the intervention in Somalia didn't succeed because president Clinton didn't had the courage to go to the end. A few casualties and he was getting his soldiers out of the country as quick as possible.
A sincere rightwing politician would have retaliated approprietly with stability and justness as a result.
It would have costed human lives, also innocent, but the result would be much more satisfying.
At this moment Somalia is still a chaotic mess because of leftwing policies in the nineties.
Does for you being right means that you're not concerned about what is going wrong in the world?
Or are you just cynical?
For me being right means in the first place being right with rightness as a goal and hopefully also as a result.
And left is just being wrong.

I'll be brief here, as I

I'll be brief here, as I feel we're moving too far off-topic with this (largely through my own fault, admittedly). I just find it rather baffling that you seem to be implying Bill Clinton and his "leftwing policies" are to blame for the cesspool that is present-day Somalia.

But then, you also think that "left" automatically equals "wrong." That pretty much closes the door on any further discussion we might have.

"For me being right means in the first place being right with rightness as a goal and hopefully also as a result."

And I honestly have no idea what you mean by that.

"For me being right means in

"For me being right means in the first place being right with rightness as a goal and hopefully also as a result."

You have to see it philosophically: not the literate sense but the figurative.
But you're allright, we're getting too far off-topic.
Initially I wanted to say that the West as a scapegoat is a leftwing invention which is greedily integrated in islamic doctrine.